Mobilizing and Organizing From Below Baltimore June 1-3

February 22, 2012 - 5:26am -- Anonymous Comrade (not verified)

Mobilizing and Organizing from Below will be a gathering of activists and organizers, workers and parents, revolutionaries and militants and radicals and dissenters, dedicated to increasing our ability to come together and challenge the systems of exploitation and oppression that have taken hold of the world. The conference will be a weekend of intensive, horizontally-organized political education, in which we can share skills, analyze the problems we face, and pose difficult questions. It will also provide a space for people from different traditions to come together and recognize the depth of our similarities and the richness of our differences; a space for reflection and discussion, distinct from both the chaotic excitement of spontaneous mass actions and the intense demands of long-term organizing work.

Why this conference, and why now? This moment in history is a moment of global revolt: against tyranny, against the violence of the state and capital, against the systems which pit us against each other. In country after country, social movements are taking to the streets in unprecedented numbers against authoritarian regimes and the transnational 1%. What can all these social movements learn from each other? What can Cairo learn from Santiago? What can Madison learn from Greece? (And what about the other way around?) What does global solidarity from below look like for a world in revolt?

At the same time, social movements remain, especially in the US, fragmented and underprepared for the demands of the moment: MOBConf hopes to facilitate conversations across generations, across cultures and subcultures, and across the commitments to different sets of tactics which can divide us. How do we build our capacities to intervene and act on a rapidly changing historical terrain? What kinds of long-term infrastructure do we need to build to make this happen? Can we sharpen our theoretical understanding of the situation we're facing? And how can we carry all of this into our everyday lives, making a movement truly grounded in care and sustained by solidarity? Our goal is to begin answering these question in a gathering as participatory and horizontal as the movements it will draw upon, and we hope you'll join us in Baltimore to help make this happen.

MOBCONF will be a chance for everyone committed to building autonomous social movements that work towards popular power, real democracy, and an end to oppression to learn from each other's experiences and develop more effective networks of solidarity. Ready to join in? We invite you to submit a proposal for a workshop, panel, or performance, and to bring information about your work to our bookfair/science fair style hall of projects, but also to think about using the other radical spaces in Baltimore to organize autonomous parallel events during the weekend.
MOBCONF
June 1-3, 2012
Baltimorehttp://mobconf.orgmobconf2012@gmail.comhttp://twitter.com/mobconfhttp://www.facebook.com/events/294370927295532/